Sadly no. The BC government has had lots of problems with its information management systems. In her recent report on the data breach at the Ministry of Health (one of two bodies currently linked into the BC Services Card), Information and Privacy Commissioner Elizabeth Denham found that the ministry had essentially no audit capability, so they had no idea who had access to health information or what they did with it. People working at the Ministry also had access to way more personal health information than they needed to do their jobs.

Maybe the government should fix the problems at the Ministry of Health before moving on grandiose plans to link a lot more of our sensitive personal information.

What do you mean when you call the BC Services Card an ‘ID card’?

The BC Services Card is the first of a number of provincial cards that will be rolled out in the next few years. BC gave the contract to a company called SecureKey, without allowing anyone else to bid. That company is also providing the federal government with ID management services, and has been given a similar untendered contract by the government of Alberta. Other provinces are expected to follow in due course.

There have been some spectacular failures in recent years, usually with these big data linkage projects. The government is spending millions of dollars to replace the scrapped $100 million BCeSIS educations data base, and the government’s own consultants have reported on how the hundreds of millions spent on the Integrated Case Management system still haven’t produced a working system.

What do we know about the BC Services Card?

Not a lot. The government has been reluctant to provide information about the project and what it will mean for British Columbians. BC FIPA has submitted a number FOI requests about the project going back to 2011, but very little information has come out.

BC FIPA today published “Culture of Care…or Culture of Surveillance?” its extensive study on the BC Government’s Integrated Case Management System (ICM) and its potential impact on independent community service organizations. “The findings of this study should sound a clear warning to government, the independent community service sector, and the general public that all is not well with the BC government’s plan for [ICM]”.

Every day, hundreds of thousands of British Columbians walk through the doors of community organizations across BC looking for help. They are people with families in crisis, individuals looking for counseling support, employment transition help or health services – to name a few. Many of these individuals provide all sorts of personal information as part of obtaining help from either community-driven services or provincial government programs. They have little knowledge of how their personal information is stored, managed, or shared, but they have a right to know that their information is handled in the most ethical and legal manner, and to withhold their personal information should they choose to do so.

In the summer of 2004, ID theft was a hot issue. Since then, it has exploded.

There has been a flurry of activity in Canada and the United States, as regulators and companies alike struggle to keep up with the rapid growth in this white collar crime. Consequently, while the research has progressed, it has been a constant struggle to keep up with the fast-breaking news events and the subsequent policy and legislative responses of governments. We have focused on providing advice and analysis on how to protect the rights of the individual, through the use of existing law, policy, standards, and management practices.